1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and device for enhancing the resolution of color flat panel displays and cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and device for spreading complex color information across adjacent pixels of a display to increase the effective horizontal resolution.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many techniques have been proposed to enhance the quality of digitized outputs of electronic display and hardcopy devices by reducing the effects of quantizations. The use of gray-scaling to smooth out jagged edges (commonly called anti-aliasing) is used in many applications. Unfortunately, the dot pitch of many common flat panel displays is not fine enough to allow effective use of gray-scale anti-aliasing. As a result, the-output of a common flat panel display employing an anti-aliasing technique looks more blurred than smoothed.
In patient monitors, some of the waveforms displayed can exhibit a high slew rate (a high slope), such as the ECG QRS complex. When these waveforms are displayed on a flat panel display, an objectionable stair stepping effect can be observed. The stair stepping effect is caused by a lack of horizontal display resolution. This lack of horizontal resolution has somewhat limited the acceptance of flat panel displays in high end patient monitoring equipment in which a higher quality waveform display is expected.
CRTs, unlike flat panels, do not have a fixed number of physical pixels. A CRT""s resolution, however, is generally limited by the speed of the CRT display electronics. Therefore, the need exists for a post-processing resolution enhancing device capable of operating within the above mentioned physical design limitations inherent in the CRT and the color flat panel.
While the above mentioned smoothing method may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, it would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as disclosed hereafter.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to produce a post processing method and device for increasing the effective horizontal resolution of waveform displayed on a color flat panel display by a factor of three.
It is another object of the invention to produce a method and device for enhancing the resolution of a color flat panel display without blurring the display.
It is a further object of the invention to produce a method and device for enhancing the effective resolution of a color flat panel display which can be used in conjunction with traditional gray scale anti-aliasing techniques to further enhance the display.
It is yet a further object of the invention to produce a device for similarly enhancing the effective resolution of a waveform on a CRT display.
It is still yet a further object of the invention to produce a device for enhancing the effective horizontal resolution of a waveform on a CRT display which can be used in conjunction with traditional gray scale anti-aliasing techniques to further enhance the display.
It is still another object to produce a device capable of enhancing the effective horizontal resolution of a waveform on both a color flat panel and a CRT display being simultaneously driven.
It is still a further object of the invention to produce software capable of enhancing the horizontal resolution of a color flat panel display by a factor of three.
The invention is a method and device for increasing the horizontal resolution of both a color flat panel display and a cathode ray tube (CRT) display. The method involves fine horizontal positioning of pixels according to information encoded in the color. Since pixel size is not changed, the display and processing bandwidth requirement is not increased. For the case of the color flat panel display, the fact that each pixel is constructed of a horizontal stripe of 3 primary color sub-pixels is utilized. Complex color information is spread across adjacent pixels to increase the apparent horizontal resolution by a factor of three. For the case of the CRT, a clock multiplier is used to multiply the video clock frequency by three. The apparent horizontal resolution of the CRT is increased by a factor of three by delaying pixels a varying multiple of this high clock speed. By encoding the fine repositioning information in the pixel color, the same display output can be post-processed respectively for the color flat panel and the CRT, allowing them to be driven and resolution enhanced simultaneously.
To the accomplishment of the above and related objects the invention may be embodied in the form illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Attention is called to the fact, however, that the drawings are illustrative only. Variations are contemplated as being part of the invention, limited only by the scope of the claims.